With Leaves and Wind
by Swordage
Summary: After the mission, after they come home, there is a storm. Sanzo learns not to dream when the sky is falling.


The wind is howling through the temple, but Sanzo pretends not to notice. Where he stands, in one of the walled gardens, the trees nearly bend over on themselves to the whimsy of the storm. There is no rain, not yet, but it is bitterly cold and he cannot feel his limbs. The broom in his hands is useless as the leaves whip away almost before he can see them, but he makes the motions nonetheless until the stick falls uselessly from numb hands. He stares down at it for a moment, blinking sharp bits of hair out of his eyes. His robes are whipping and slapping against his legs but he hardly notices. He thinks the world might be ending. He isn't sure if he cares.

The sky is dark, a roiling mass of boiling pitch inversed above his head. He hears, distantly, a chime - probably some bit of metal twisted from its boltings in the midst of this madness pinging rhythmically against another useless bit of metal. The wind reverses sharply, blowing his hair back from his face, tangling it roughly. He thinks he might be swaying on his feet, but he's so cold and everything else is moving so he might be imagining it. He peers up at the sky, at the leaves tossing fitfully in the air, and winces as the wind screams shrilly in ever-changing cadences. He tucks his hands into his sleeves in front of his chest, the closest he'll get to hugging himself like a child. He thinks he might be afraid, just a little, of this storm. He shivers, suddenly and convulsively, and it's like a dam bursting from its seams and now he can't stop trembling, muscles jerking so hard he cries out softly at the pain of it, the tiny noise lost in the shrill wailing of the gale.

There's an answering shocked noise behind him and he tries to turn but he can't feel where his feet are and he falls to his knees, twisting painfully and landing with his weight on his left knee. He can hear it jar against the flagstones, even through the wind. Leaves catch against his legs, piling up so swiftly that he thinks irrationally that they'll bury him alive and digest him with leaf-juices, and he turns his head to see who made that noise a small eternity ago, and then there are warm arms around his chest.

"Idiot," he hears murmured by his ear, warm breath turning his frigid flesh into something resembling human skin, "you stupid idiot." He wonders how he can hear those words so clearly when the wind has made him deaf, but someone else's hair is tickling his cheek and he can't stop shaking. The arms around him are bands of warmth, tingling as he regains feeling, and he hadn't realized his chest had gone numb. His back is almost burning hot, it seems, and somehow he gets his hands out of his sleeves and they're caught up between warm palms. He shudders, because somehow that makes him warmer than the arms around him or the breath on his ear, and it feels more intimate as well. He wants to pull away, but that might be worse than staying.

"Sanzo, you're freezing," he's told. He just sighs and gives in, leaning back into the warmth and heat, and then he tries not to blush as he's swept up in those warm and awkward arms, his feet dangling in space. The wind is cold against his legs, and he loses a sandal. He buries his face in the proffered shoulder, ignoring how un-Sanzo it is. He can feel his hands again, enough to catch cloth between fingers and palm and clench before he loses all sensation again. He tells himself it isn't weakness or giving in or letting someone care for him. And if it is, he deserves it for being out there in that storm just because of a stupid dream, because he was too stubborn to go see if they were still alive, to make sure it was just a dream and only a dream and that all the beds were filled with breathing bodies and that they all came back.

And as Goku carries him inside where it's warm, he wonders what color paper airplane would stand out against this sky, and why there are frozen lines on his cheeks, and why he can't stop shaking.


End file.
